Courier Summer 2021

Humanities Exploring Human Rights in RPE One of the best things about Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPE) as a subject is that students get to explore a real range of topics from a variety of perspectives. In so doing, they get to analyse and question systems of beliefs whilst reflecting on and developing their own. Over the past three and a half years Miss Vickery and I have been working to renew and update our KS3 curriculum. We wanted to create inspiring learning schemes that address some of the critical issues in our world today and allow students to ask and explore some pertinent questions. We know that our students feel passionate about Human Rights and really wanted to create a scheme that was relevant to their experiences. Inspired by recent events, Miss Vickery (with a little bit of help from me), has revamped our Human Rights scheme to place it very much within the context of social injustices that our students see within the world. We focus on three key elements of discrimination: racism, sexism and homophobia. Through a range of lessons, students examine the history of these prejudices within the UK and beyond. We explore some of the systems that have supported discrimination and give students the opportunity to reflect on ways that such discrimination can be challenged within today’s society. This academic year, we have trialled out the new learning scheme with both Year 8s and Year 9s and have been really inspired by how engaged, articulate and reflective our students are when addressing such challenging issues. The patience and maturity that they have shown one another during class discussions has been exceptional and is testament to how brilliant our students are. Well done guys! Natalie Clark Huw Paige: Geography Alumni I’mstudying a BA in Geography at the University of Oxford. It’s going really well, lecturers seem lovely even though the best two are on sabbatical so we miss out on them this year. Freshers week was nice, definitely a different week from any normal year but I’ve got to know quite a few people. I have been running more or less every day, which is a great way of getting to know the city and so far I really like what I see! Everything was flooded when I arrived in the Autumn, they’d just had the third wettest day on record or something, but everything’s now dried out and walking near the rivers is a great way to spend an afternoon. We caught up with Huw who is currently studying Geography at The University of Oxford. We asked him how it's going, how he's finding the course and university life in general... Geography students, Start Bay Page 35 ‘I think it is important to learn about social justice so that we can do something about it in the future.’ ‘I have found the Human Rights scheme of learning really useful and important. I think this should be something that everyone is taught.’